


ALL THESE CHANGES

by greyquill



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death, End of the World, M/M, One Shot, Soulmates, taeten are in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29981493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyquill/pseuds/greyquill
Summary: Cities burning, tides that rise.She's in pain, she's been hurting.Can you feel our mother raging?~~~Alternatively: Not even the end of the world can keep taeten apart.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	ALL THESE CHANGES

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary taken directly from Nick Hakim's [song here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yQrlvzBG-0).

They knew this day was coming. They knew since the moment they were born, air forced into their lungs after months in a dark veiny pit. Who would bring a child into a world like this?

Scientists had been predicting the many ways the world would end. Only shedding her skin to be born again, but how they’ll return, if they ever do? No one’s sure.

He wishes though that they knew at least that much. It would make this moment easier… or he hopes it would. Everything has been so uncertain.

Taeyong, like many of the people of the past few decades, was born in a shanty. A mask pressed to his face as soon as he took his first breath. The air much too dry and full of fine sand particles to go on without it. Most newborns don’t make it past the first five minutes.

But if there’s one thing humans are good at it’s survival. While the cities burned and the waters rose, reclaiming the land, one by one communities migrated inland. Overpopulation became an issue but the heatwaves and the scarcity of food quickly solved that issue.

Communities dwindled into groups, groups into families, families into singular persons. By then, there was nothing much left to protect you but fate. The fish all died, plants stopped taking to the tired soil, the weather was unpredictable.

Taeyong made it through, someway, somehow, but he lost everything along the way, everything but the reason his heart continues to fight in his chest.

The ground shakes violently again, the limbs of their shack trembling and threatening to fall on their heads, but his mask is secure so the gas doesn’t hurt so much. The wood creaks dangerously from the weight of ash and dust on the roof. The hand in his squeezes hard and he squeezes back, turning away from the small doorway, the murky ocean, reflecting all the fiery colors in the sky, lapping at the porch.

He meets cattish brown eyes, filled with a range of emotions. His body is shot with panic, too much to figure out what those emotions are. But his mind reels back to every moment spent with _him._

They met when people still had hope, waiting for the earth to have mercy, for normalcy to return. They were hunting down all the canned food that wasn’t already ransacked. He’d already lost his family, but Taeyong hadn’t. He didn’t know that pain until after they’d shared what they could.

He remembers being huddled together during the unforgivingly cold nights, remembers the soft kisses and the moments where he’d get lost in the tales _he_ would tell, the stars in his eyes reflecting a millennia of stories and dreams. He remembers the day he’d told him his name.

A number whispered against his collarbones.

Euphoria fills every cell and vein and quickly melts into fear and hurting. He wishes their time wasn’t cut so short.

He feels the heat of the lava flowing their way, surprised they haven’t been engulfed by it yet. Ten moves onto his side to face him, undoing the ties of his mask and setting it aside. Tears swim in his eyes. He reaches to undo his and Taeyong lets him.

There’s nowhere else to run.

Taeyong wraps his arms around him, holding him as close as he can as the earth rages all around them, her heart flaming. He feels the shudders running up and down Ten’s body, his trembling fingers on his face, the warmth of his forehead on his.

Ten exhales shakily and nuzzles their noses together, their tears mingling. “Taeyong…”

He’s going to miss him terribly.

“We’ll meet again? Right…?” Ten whispers.

Taeyong tries to smile, tries to be strong, but he can’t. Instead, he holds Ten tighter and presses two gentle kisses to the apples of his cheeks. His love flinches as the wood cries out, splintering and burning.

Ten winds his hands over his shoulders, into his hair, holding him, shielding him as the air grows hotter. Taeyong keeps his eyes on his face, resigned and weeping. “I’ll search every corner for you, Ten… I’ll find you. I promise… I promise…”

He nuzzles their noses together one last time and buries his face in his shoulder as Ten does the same. He feels tears on his neck for just a moment before they’re both ignited.

His skin sears and splits at the seams, but he focuses on smiling red lips, on a curved nose, on bewitching eyes. He finds comfort in the love swimming in the brown there. 

Every cell in his body bursts with raging pain. The earth is raging. His organs, his brain are boiled from the inside out, but he keeps his arms around Ten and holds him through to the end.

…

..

.

.

..

…

゜゜

゜゜・

.° ｡˚

˚｡ °.

・゜゜

.・

・．

The world he opens his eyes to is blue. Blue in every and all directions. He’s alone, but he feels this is the way things are. Blue-green scales stretch from the top of his head to his webbed toes. Spiked dorsal fins flare down along his spine, more along his cheeks.

He knows not what his mother or father looked like, if he had any siblings. He only remembers being thrust out into the warm waters. He only knows it’s time to go.

He abandons the sanctuary of sand and green, getting tangled in the swaying strands that stretch up towards the light. His claws make quick work of them and soon he’s drifting along with the current, gliding over more sand below and coral and multitudes of colorful fish that cower in his shadow.

He drifts past, paying them no mind as the currents carry him away, leaving behind the sandy floor. Over dark blue waters, he swims. He swims past tall orange and gleaming structures spiraling up towards him. Much larger fish swim through those structures, deteriorated and old, forgotten buildings of a much older civilization.

He gets the urge to hunt those fish down below, to run his claws down their patterned, dark backs. He can see right through their camouflage, but this isn’t his destination.

He keeps swimming, leaving behind those clustered old structures to venture out onto darker waters. He leaves the warm current behind until the light above dims and disappears. The world goes dark, but he can spot other creatures miles under him, putting on a display of colors, glowing red and different shades of blue.

He can’t quite do what they are, but he can blend in with water. His stomach and arms and legs reflecting the darkness all around him to keep from getting attacked. His instincts tell him he’s going the wrong way. Turn back to the warmer waters, follow that singular star refracted up there. But a different, stronger force strings him along through the night.

When the light returns, he hunts down a creature with more jagged teeth than him. He tears into it, staining the water around him red, and leaves the few remains to float away for others. He’s more than determined now to reach his destination.

His webbed hands and feet easily propel him forward. Eventually, he finds warm currents again and he lets them assist him in his journey to somewhere only his heart knows, though he’s never been in these waters before. A paler blue than the emerald ones he was born in.

He finds sandy ground again and another weird stone structure ahead. He floats forward and sensing no danger, enters through the narrow rectangular entrance. Orange and pink flora growing along the sides. Light spills through the open top and dances on the green floor, grass waving with the waters.

Lying there in the middle of the green are two stones in the shape of him, embracing, tangled together. These creatures don’t have fins or webs between their fingers, but he recognizes a connection—some sort of relation to this ancient stone.

It seems these two creatures met their demise together before time turned them to stone.

A crackling chittering starts from the depths of his chest, building in his throat, flowing through the waters around him. Clicking out a heartbroken song as he lies near the entwined stone.

He doesn’t know how long he cries for. The light above fades in and out many times until it’s replaced by a softer light in the dark. The moon. He knows that much.

His song attracts a creature to him. He senses them before they’re even close, the low-frequency vibrations they’re emitting permeate his scales.

The creature is answering his song, he realizes and so he waits expectantly, keeping his eyes trained on the dark, dark waters just outside this small grave.

And then he sees him. Another creature swimming up from the below. Wide dark eyes stare at him and blue stripes glow along his form.

He chitters a greeting.

The other creature, this stranger swims right up to him. His blue stripes pulsing mesmerizingly, stars shining in his dark eyes. The moon above lets him see his grey scales, white dots along his back, and flowing fins along his spine.

He raises a tentative hand and presses it to his cheek, holding his ethereal face. The stranger purrs in that low-frequency and leans into his hand, eyes fluttering closed. 

_“Taeyong.”_

_“Ten.”_

His chest swells and he smiles, though he knows not why he knows that name or how he knows him. He only knows he’s found his complement, his very special one.

_“You found me.”_

Taeyong brushes a hand over the stone below them and then meets his eyes, the same rumbling sorrow building in his chest. Ten can feel the vibrations all around him, can see the way the gills on his neck and sides flutter with emotions. He’s sure his are acting up the same way.

They lay side by side in the grass. When he touches him, the deep yearning in his veins and his core is satisfied. Ten traces his claws along the dots on Taeyong’s shoulders, over the bioluminescent stripes covering his collarbones and sides, their legs interlaced between them. Taeyong holds him, pressing his lips to every part of his face, even gentler against his cheek frills.

Back and forth they purr and nuzzle their noses together, as if they’ve done it a million times before. Ten learns of the dark, cold waters Taeyong was born in, of the trials he’s faced coming here, of the emotions that overtook him when he heard his song. 

He presses his lips to his once and grins at the way Taeyong’s fins flare up from where they were tucked against him, his stripes pulsing. Taeyong, in turn, nibbles at his jaw and his collarbones, careful not to let his fangs puncture his scales. Ten trills, pleased, and runs his hands over Taeyong’s head and the flowing, waving fins like hair.

They chitter and click happily, swimming round and round, chasing each other under the moonlight before leaving the entwined stones behind—their previous bodies. They let the warm currents carry them away together, drifting into the endless ocean.

They let the earth fill their lungs with the sea and in return fill the vast waters with their love song, prevailing over time and time again.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I watched this documentary about how the world would eventually succumb to climate change and I got so anxious just thinking about it that my whole body cramped up, which has never happened before. I wrote this fic to remedy some of those feelings... and as you can clearly see, I'm trying to experiment a bit with my writing and stuff lol let me know what you think.  
> If you need a visualizer of taeten's new forms, I imagine they looked something like the amphibian man from The Shape of Water (2017).  
> Hope you liked it :)
> 
> I hope ya'll are doing well and staying safe and healthy! Love y'all <3


End file.
